COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Parents responded positively to the
"family
values" theme pushed by the Republicans in the 1992
presidential
election -- and could do the same in 1996, a new study suggests.

The study found that in 1992 George Bush received about half
of the votes of white people with children under 6 years old,
compared to only 30 percent for Bill Clinton.

People who held traditional views about the family were also
more likely to vote for Bush than Clinton.

The results suggest an appeal to family values may be worthwhile
for the presidential candidates this year, said Herbert Weisberg,
co-author of the study and a professor of political science at
Ohio State University.

"The Republican family values strategy shouldn't be
dismissed
because Bush lost," Weisberg said. "The strategy was
successful in attracting parents. The problem was that there
were not enough voters who were parents of young children to

secure victory."

The key is to attract parental voters without alienating the
larger bloc of single voters -- something Bush failed to do,
Weisberg
said.

Weisberg conducted the study with Laura Arnold, a doctoral
student
in political science at Ohio State. Their results appear in
this month's issue of American Politics Quarterly.

Weisberg and Arnold said they were somewhat surprised by the
results of the study. They figured that even if parents were
more likely to vote for Bush, it was because of other related
factors -- for example, married people tend to have higher
incomes,
which often leads to voting Republican. Thus, married people
with children would be more likely to support Bush. But the
study
found that parents were more likely to vote for Bush even after
researchers took into account socioeconomic factors, party
identification,
and attitudes that may affect voting choice.

"The results suggest that the 'family values' debate had
a noticeable affect on voters," Arnold said. "The
emphasis
on family values helped to make Bush more popular with parents
and those who support traditional views of the family."

The issue was first brought up in May 1992 by Vice President
Dan Quayle, when he criticized the television character Murphy
Brown for becoming a single mother. Family values then became
one of the battlegrounds of the 1992 campaign.

Weisberg and Arnold's study included about 1,600 people who
participated
in the National Election Studies, a nationwide survey conducted
under a grant from the National Science Foundation. The study
found:

Parenthood did not affect voting for independent candidate
Ross Perot.

Among white voters with children under 6 years old, 48
percent
voted for Bush while 30 percent voted for Clinton and 22 percent
voted for Ross Perot. (Black voters were excluded from this part
of the analysis because very few voted for Bush and because the
marriage rate among Blacks is lower than among whites.)

Among whites who didn't have children 6 years or younger,
46 percent voted for Clinton, 34 percent voted for Bush and 20
percent voted for Perot.

Bush also had a slight advantage among white parents with
children between the ages of 6 to 18. Bush captured 41 percent
of their vote, compared to 37 percent for Clinton.

Although Bush was most successful with parents of children
under 6, only 15 percent of white voters were in that category.
In contrast, 40 percent of the white respondents in the survey
were not married. Among never married voters, 57 percent voted
for Clinton and 21 percent voted for Bush. "The Democratic
strength among the unmarried more than offsets the Republican
appeal to the married with children," Weisberg explained.

Married people with no children under 18 were slightly more
likely to vote for Clinton (42 percent) than Bush (37 percent).

People who held to more traditional family values were more
likely to support Bush than Clinton. Such traditionalists agreed
with statements like "This country would have many fewer
problems if there were more emphasis on traditional family
ties"
and "The newer lifestyles are contributing to the breakdown
of society."

Weisberg said it's not clear whether parents will show a
favorite
in this year's presidential election as they did in 1992. It
may depend on whether family values is a hot-button issue again.
If the Republicans decide to make it an issue, they will have
to be more careful than they were in 1992, according to Weisberg.
Some of the pro-family rhetoric seemed to go too far and hurt
Bush's support among singles and those outside the traditional
family.

"Republicans can continue to appeal to the traditional
family,
though possibly in a less divisive manner that does not alienate
other voters," he said.